All three candidates in the upcoming Kaohsiung mayoral by-election on Saturday vowed to push for infrastructure improvements, despite the city’s relatively tight budget.
During the only televised policy presentation before the vote on Sunday next week, Kaohsiung City Councilor Jane Lee (李眉蓁) of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) said she would continue the efforts of former mayor Han Kuo-yu (韓國瑜) — also of the KMT and who was ousted in a recall vote in June — to make sure that “roads are flat, lights are bright and ditches are unblocked.”
She accused the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), which governed the city for two decades before Han was elected in 2018, of failing to maintain even the most basic infrastructure.
Photo: CNA
Adding to Kaohsiung’s woes is about NT$330 billion (US$11.2 billion) in debt left by Han’s predecessors, which was partly due to poor financial management, she said.
Wu Yi-jheng (吳益政) of the Taiwan People’s Party said that the roads must be widened to make room for more trees to mitigate the effects of “urban heat islands,” areas with higher temperatures caused by dense infrastructure.
Wu also called for changes to the Act Governing the Allocation of Government Revenues and Expenditures (財政收支劃分法) so that Kaohsiung could keep more of its tax revenues.
A person can only gain intellectual freedom through financial independence, he said, adding that the concept applies to cities as well.
Lee agreed on reforming the act, and vowed to reduce the city’s debt and increase the earnings of Kaohsiung residents.
Former vice premier Chen Chi-mai (陳其邁) of the DPP, who lost to Han in 2018, denied that the central government has not taken Kaohsiung’s development seriously.
He said that the city received the most funding from the central government of any administrative area from 2017 to last year.
Chen also said the KMT had contributed to the city’s financial woes when it led Kaohsiung until 1998, adding that he would appeal to the central government for more funding.
He also pledged to establish standard operating procedures for the city’s infrastructure, including for project construction, maintenance and supervision.
Among the highlights of the presentation was Lee’s proposal to promote the city’s rum industry, because of its abundant supply of sugar cane.
If Kaohsiung could gain 10 percent of the global rum market, it could generate NT$50 billion annually, she said.
“Everybody knows Kinmen has kaoliang and Yilan has Kavalan [a whiskey distillery], and I believe Kaohsiung could establish its own market,” she said.
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
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Heat advisories were in effect for nine administrative regions yesterday afternoon as warm southwesterly winds pushed temperatures above 38°C in parts of southern Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 3:30pm yesterday, Tainan’s Yujing District (玉井) had recorded the day’s highest temperature of 39.7°C, though the measurement will not be included in Taiwan’s official heat records since Yujing is an automatic rather than manually operated weather station, the CWA said. Highs recorded in other areas were 38.7°C in Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門), 38.2°C in Chiayi City and 38.1°C in Pingtung’s Sandimen Township (三地門), CWA data showed. The spell of scorching